What is there to say about GM’s Colonnade cars of the mid 1970’s that we have not already said here at CC? Sometimes, however, one presents itself and just begs to be photographed and shared. Sometimes because they are beautiful, well-kept originals that have been lovingly maintained by longtime owners. Or, sometimes because they are the complete opposite. Like this one, for example.
I was in high school when these cars were new. At the time I thoroughly detested them. Because they were so ubiquitous and so boring. And because I was a teenager, if we must give a full answer. My mother bought a Pontiac version in 1974 and I got to know that car extremely well. I treated it just as you might expect when you combine a teenage driver with an attitude of contempt for the car. Let’s just say that had the Luxury LeMans spent a lot more time in my young hands it might have looked like this one by about 1980.
The early 1980’s became an era of expensive gasoline. In that environment these cars morphed from symbols of suburban conformity and social acceptability to “good beater”. Good beater was better than “cheap beater”, which consisted of much rustier ’70s Fords and pretty much anything built by Chrysler before 1979. Good beaters remained in mostly decent condition (except for rear bumpers with rust holes behind the peeling chrome) and provided moderately cheap transportation for someone a couple of steps up from the bottom rung of Life’s Ladder and who needed a reliable car.
By the late ’80s these got down into cheap beater territory, kicked out of their “good beater” status by the 1977-79 B body cars that were more spacious and efficient. And from that point, of course, most of them were slowly used up and thrown away.
Sometimes, however, you see the straggler. This is a straggler. It was probably maintained in Grandma Esther’s garage until she had her stroke in 2001 and was then forced to join the vehicular rat race wherein pretty much every new car eventually lands in a junk yard. I call that final state before meeting Sanford & Son an “end stage beater”.
The end stage beater is its own thing. It is the kind of car that most people would hesitate to even sit down in for fear of catching something from the gross seats. The end stage beater has usually been leaking water for years and has some bad mildew issues in the trunk and in the carpets. The floors are soft from rust, and there has not been a functioning air conditioner or two matching tires in at least ten years. Most of the dash lights are burned out, but it doesn’t matter because none of the instruments work.
But the car does one thing: It starts (almost) every day and rolls to its destination so that its owner can get to a minimum wage job which gets him/her one day closer to making the rent or buying some hamburger and potatoes. As long as the car starts, moves, turns and (kind of) stops it is fit for duty as an end-stage beater.
Only the best cars make it to end stage beater status. Try as you might, you will probably never see a Ford Contour or a second generation Intrepid in this combination of age and condition. Cars like those suffered from so many life-threatening diseases – they are like the guy who keels over from a massive coronary at age 49 – well before all of the other side effects of aging and bad life-choices have a chance to show themselves. The end stage beater is like the 79-year old guy with emphysema, diabetes and mobility-robbing arthritis who still drags his butt out to the kitchen every morning to make himself some breakfast. To be clear, I admire people like that. And I admire cars like this.
Some end stage beaters have begun life as cars that were not so impressive, like the Plymouth Volare. This Buick, however, would have been the object of some pride when it was first brought home in 1976. The neighbors would not have cared so much about the durable Buick V8 or the Turbo Hydra Matic transmission that brought its maker back into the lead lap in transmission design. This Buick would have impressed simply by being a Buick. It was reasonably well designed, reasonably well built and an attractive overall package.
The stacked rectangular headlights are an acquired taste for those of us today, but in 1976 these said “I’m a new and modern car.” It was a fairly successful update of a three-year-old car that still had a couple of years left to go in its duty cycle.
I would argue that out of all of the Colonnade models, Buick was the most consistently good-looking for the entire five year run. (Gee, was it only five years? It seemed like about twelve at the time.) Other Divisions may have offered a looker in a certain year or certain body style, but the Buicks did so more consistently.
I still see those good looks peeking through the hard use. Although perhaps a little less on the inside where the patented General Motors Multi-Hue Plastics turned to wildly different colors after starting out in the same shade. Oh well, the interiors were always these cars’ weakest area. And we should be amazed that any of the super squishy weatherstripping remains on this old geezer. I remember that stuff when it was new, never having seen weatherstripping so soft and effective. Oh well.
I had not realized at first how rare this car is. The Regal sedan is one of only 17,118 built. The only model of the whole Buick A body line (305k units in all) that appeared in lower numbers was the Century Custom station wagon, and even then the difference was only about 600 cars. The sedan output of the entire Century/Regal line was only around 54k units. Compare this with the 124,498 Regal coupes for the year. Or over 500k for the Cutlass line.
Although Buick was reaching for the sport/performance market in 1976, the original buyer of this car picked one from smack in the middle of Buick’s traditional slice of the market – understated luxury.
And I am not holding the chalky paint against this car (and certainly not against the current owner). There was something about GM’s paint formulations in these years that made these lacquer finishes chalk like nobody’s business. It took a lot of polishing to keep the chalk-monster at bay, something that this poor car has not seen in a long time.
And this was not just an issue with the red paints (Boston Red?) either, although they were among the worst. Most of the darker colors suffered from this shortcoming. There was not a lot that Chrysler did better than GM in 1976, but paint durability was certainly among them.
I shot these pictures after a big snow last winter. I had driven by the car almost daily for several months, always vaguely intending to shoot some pictures. But it was on this Day-After-The-Snowstorm that this old sled showed what it was really made of by making the hard slog into work just as normal. That day I drove out at lunchtime just to take these pictures as my little way of saluting this old dog.
It was a perfect day for pictures, showing off a passenger door that would not latch in the cold (possibly giving away that the driver’s door went the opposite direction and would not open at all because of the quick and dirty plastic replacement for the broken window.) This Regal looked a little less than regal, but I didn’t care. That was the day I began giving the car an admiring glance and a little mental “thumb’s up” each time I passed it.
In the years before its bankruptcy and reorganization, GM all too often built cars with the attitude that they deserved special recognition just for being there. This car, at this time and location, actually did deserve special recognition just for being there. Every one of us who has owned a Cheap Beater (or lower in the hierarchy) knows that for every fault that is open for others to see there are at least three faults that are known only to the owner. This car is surely no different. Did it need brake or power steering or transmission fluid added twice a week? Did the fuel tank leak above 2/3 full? Maybe the heater had been bypassed due to the leaky heater core. Or perhaps none of the blend doors worked because of a massive vacuum leak.
I am sad to report that by mid spring of last year the Regal stopped coming around. We all know what happened. When the people we personally know succumb to their final illness there is at least a death notice or obituary to let us know what happened. There is no such opportunity when an end-stage beater finally suffers from that one last failure that makes the owner say “That’s it, there is no fixing this.” The car just disappears from sight. So let this missive serve as my offer of condolences to the anonymous former owner of this stouthearted car that went just about as far as a car can go with the hand it was dealt. We should all be as dedicated as this old Regal.
That green glass looks great. Manky, yes, but I’d drive it after a thorough decontenting and vacuum. An end stage beater like this is the only excuse for cheap seat covers.
the green glass means it came with factory A/C. GM tinted the glass blue or green when the car was ordered with A/C. Non Air cars got clear glass.
Tinted glass was actually a separate option from AC. I’ve seen a few clear glass AC cars over the years, and some friends of ours had a bare bones dog dish no AC 75 Century but still with tinted windows.
Pour one out for this not-so-regal Regal. And hoist one for the great story accompanying it! Many of us have had cars like this one and all of us have known cars like this. It even had a good color going for it until even that was ruined by a ghastly beige vinyl top.
Perhaps the door was open as it would be too much effort to be motivated to lift the handle to open it once again….
“Perhaps the door was open as it would be too much effort to be motivated to lift the handle to open it once again….”
I know exactly what it’s like to lift up that door and hear the ‘gronnnk’ as it shuts, maybe having to be repeated once or three times until the door latch catches. Maybe the door doesn’t catch anymore.
And the smell of the interior, especially on a hot day.
All 2 door GM cars of this era did that, from Monte Carlos to Trans Ams.
the 4 doors are a bit easier on the hinges, the doors are significantly lighter than the two door models, so the hinges last a lot longer, the roller catches still wear out and make that squawk sound.
(I have the Chevy version of this 4 door)
My guess is the door latch isn’t shutting because it’s frozen. It happened every now and then to most of the old GM cars I had. It usually happened when the temperature was above freezing and wet, then dropped below freezing. The latch just won’t grab the striker until it warms up a bit (driving with the heater on usually worked). I used to use a seat belt to hold the door close if it was an unoccupied seat and after a few minutes of heat and driving the latch would hold again.
As for the roller noise, much of this was from improper maintenance. Eiither they’d seize from lack of lubrication or they weren’t lubricated properly. Most people would incorrectly lubricate the roller’s circumference, which would the hinge detent to slide over the roller rather than allow the roller to spin. Eventually they’d wear oblong and not work at all. You had to be careful to just lubricate the roller’s centre shaft only.
The Colonnade 2-doors have massively heavy doors, probably the heaviest and one of the longest doors I have ever used. FWIW, on a 2-door they are 59″ long!
I love Colonnades and though it has stacked headlights (sorry Mr. Shafer, we differ on this), this Regal still looks good and certainly better than, say, a Chevelle.
There’s an end-stage beater in my neighbourhood, based on your definition. It’s an early 1990s Mitsubishi Magna (Diamante) wagon with Mitsubishi’s patented AlwaysFade™ paint. It’s maroon, too, which seems to be one of the quickest colours to fade. I’ve never seen it move but it’s on an inner-city street so surely it must be capable of motion. The owner leaves one of the windows open 24/7, even on rainy days. It seems to have various dents and scrapes, too. I love seeing it though because that generation of Magna/Verada is so rare nowadays.
We agree about the stacked headlights on this Regal but for likely different reasons. The inset is insufficient and the entire header panel looks rather forced, which it is. Having seen two of these Buicks in person, but in wagon form, back in September, the front end treatment just doesn’t excite me.
If the inset were greater, like on the same year Monte Carlo, it would be a different story. Those look much more organic (and, as always, I suspect I’ll be in the minority on this, which is just fine!).
IMO the first year ’73 Buick sedans were the best-looking of all the Colonnades and this somewhat shoehorned-in use of stacked square headlights among the worst. Chevy pulled it off better, but it’s a shame GM couldn’t get away from annual styling changes, as pro forma as they sometimes were, on these cars since they were doing so with the smaller ones and Ford went from ’74-76 without tweaking the Torino.
You had me at “Colonnade”. Great piece, JP. I’d definitely go with your theory that this car had probably been a low-miles, garage kept car until about the turn of the millennium before being used as regular transportation.
While there’s something a little melancholy about the inevitable destruction of such a heretofore well-preserved car, I also agree with your sentiment that this car does deserve respect for having served its owner right through to the end of its “end beater” life as a transportation car.
AC needs recharged..
Old Buicks never die. They just fade away…
This car outlasted many, many people from its era. I wouldn’t feel too sorry for it. The youthful looking in 1976 ‘Captain’ from Captain and Tennille died last week. It also outlasted the guy who made the Regal famous, by at least 20 years. Actor Telly Savalas.
From the photos, it appeared to still be in remarkably decent condition. Except for the very last photo. Showing severe rust through of the rear bumper from the inside. A very bad sign. Indicative of road salt spray from the rear wheel wells that was never routinely washed away. Meaning the likelihood of widespread serious underbody rust.
Colonnades used to be as common as Civics today. More so. But I got over their inevitable end by the early 80s. As I felt they couldn’t be forgiven for their terrible space utilization. Various compacts of the day, were as spacious. And used less gas.
Interesting, how much the hood ornament with the Medieval helmet, looks like the 1970s Ziebart logo.
Good story, great writing! Reminded me of my silver ‘78 Regal Turbo Sport Coupe, with it’s clear coat blotching on its roof within a year of new car purchase. In California. Given my experience with its weak constitution and construction, I am confident it never saw action in the new century.
Very well-said describing the end stage beater and its owners. We all see them and we all know them. It always strikes me as odd that someone would scoop up a 40-year old car like this probably for $100 when they can get something far newer for probably the same price.
Ease of maintenance if the owner is so inclined, or cheaper costs to repair if the owner is not mechanically inclined. This is why I always choose older than average used cars. That and despite their shortcomings, older cars have a certain something that a newer one does not. My personal experience anyhow.
I’ve done this ancient terminal beater thing too. A running car for $100, with some character to boot. Thumb your nose at anyone who doesn’t like it. At that point in the car’s life, it’s disposable, so why not have some fun with your transportation?
I have a few friends that only used to buy old American iron like this as beaters rather than newer stuff. That is until they all got used up around here. The reason some choose stuff like this over more modern choices is that they are generally great beaters. They will run even when severely abused, they can take lots of punishment and if you are moderately mechanically inclined, they are easy to fix. Further, the parts are extraordinarily cheap and readily available.
A very fine catch of what is indeed the most consistently good looking Colonnade. It’s obvious this particular one had been quite fetching in its youth. The color combination (let’s not talk about vinyl) is quite attractive and likely rather novel in the Regal realm.
Incidentally, Corgi had a long time model of a Buick Colonnade. Of course one version was brown for Kojak but the one that entered my life was blue and white and used to say “Metropolis Police” down the side, being released for one of the first Superman movies. With use being equivalently rough, it is now in slightly better shape than the Regal pictured here.
Here’s an online example:
It wasn’t until just now that I noticed that all of Buick’s color names for 1976 had a bicentennial theme.
I noticed. Congressman Cream… good lord.
Maybe they called it that as a sly aside because some Congresscritters like to skim the cream off the top.
Yeah. I’m sure someone got a bonus for thinking this up.
Great photos and age analogies JPC.
That right side door reminds me of a old Chrysler that a co-worker at Grumman gave away because the driver side front door would not close.
Beaters aside, many people do not realize that car hinges need a little lubrication now and then.
My sister had a Colonnade Buick of that vintage that replaced a ’67 Buick Sport Wagon. I loved the ’67 wagon; hated the Colonnade (for many reasons). It was replaced by a ’79 Toyota Celica which was quite lovely, very reliable, and lasted a long time.
BTW, when snow is in the forecast, many think of pristine fields of white and fluffy flakes falling down. Snow makes me think of scenes like your 4th photo, and the thought that just walking up to that car could be dangerous.
Once one gets to a certain age, falls can be very dangerous.
Great story, Jim, and I love your Beater Hierarchy.
If GM had only sprung for different roofs for these cars, make to make. Then each would truly have had its own identity.
GM used to be so good at disguising the shared commonality between their car lines. You’d never know that a Cadillac shared anything with a Chevy
Then it all went to hell. Why pay the extra coin for a colonnade Buick sedan when you could get a lookalike Chevy for less? It just became way too obvious that your lower-tier GM car was just as good as one of the more expensive division’s cars.
Jim, Does the old slogan, “When better cars are built, Buick will build them” apply here?
Obviously the filled ash holder on the dash means, “No ifs, ands, or BUTTS” about that slogan.
With this Buick, you won’t have to “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel” on the way to the nearby Steak ‘N Shake. It was once said that “Chesterfields are Smoother, and the Cigarette most smoked by Doctors.” Is that true of the Buick’s driver?
I have to agree with you about how amazingly quickly a pristine clean snowfall becomes grungy dirty here in the Great Lakes States.
Thanks for the story and the pics of this Buick–giving me memories of my long gone non-smoker father-in-law who was a die-hard Buick enthusiast who owned one, like this one but more pristine, as well as several Rivs.
His beloved Buick ash trays were constantly being refilled, replenished by my chain smoking mother-in-law–to his eternal frustration. There was always more smoke in the car than coming out of the tail pipe. Seeing this car’s dash ash tray gave me smiles and a good laugh of remembrance.
Cheers.
Thanks Vic. You now remind me of the many smokers’ cars I spent time in as a kid. And that I have not seen a bean-bag ash tray in decades. One of those always sat on the engine cover of the 73 Dodge van that my best friend’s dad chain smoked in.
You sure weren’t kidding when you mentioned yesterday’s Clunker article was highly predictive of today’s feature. And even though we’re only 10 days into the new year, I nominate this for the Best of 2019 Week.
Incidentally, GM paint never became chalky if it was never exposed to the outdoors. How do I know this? Well, my father bought a 1976 Century Custom wagon in Mt. Vernon Cream, and he later thought the color would look good on our house’s radiator covers. So he bought a few spray cans from the Buick dealer and painted the radiator covers. 30 years later, they still looked great.
Thanks Eric! I laughed out loud when I got to your piece yesterday afternoon.
And props to your father! I have used Dupli-Color automotive spray paint for years for all kinds of household applications. The GM Bronzemist metallic from the early 2000s still shines like crazy on my mailbox.
Eric703,
Wow, what a great idea, amazing the things we learn about here in CC.
We have radiators in our house, and every few years I have had to repaint the radiators and our radiator covers due to peeling, so next time, likely this summer, GM paint/Duplicolor will be worth a try. Thanks for the tip.
Cheers.
Let’s drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Lets drink to the salt of the earth
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
Let’s drink to the hard working people
Lets think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth
Jagger/Richards
If there is a Pulitzer prize for Curbside Classics, “End-stage Beater” must be at the top of the list.
Very well written, great prose and substance.
Not every vehicle will make it to this point–certainly NOT Ford Contours–or even Ford Probes (I had two…). But a Chevy Celebrity or Lumina just might….
I remember when large herds of these Colonnades, 2 and 4-door traversed the roads of Long Island when my family returned to the US in 1977. Five years later, one of my best friends bought his first car, a 73 Cutlass sedan. A decade later, the ranks of the Collonades had thinned, but they were still there. I wonder if my friend’s lasted through 1987 or 2003.
And I now realize, I’m not the only one who was enamored of GM’s door seals; our Fairmont’s looked so cheap compared to our Pontiac, and I started noticing looking at that on cars in general–and GM’s look rich!
I have not direct experience with a 20-yr old 1970s GM car’s interior. I don’t recall our Ventura’s interior having different shades of light beige when we sold it–but I do recall that, compared with other cars of that (68-83), I thought GM’s interiors were distinctly nicer–or Ford and Dodge/Plymouth were distinctly cheaper (except the Cordoba).
I personally felt the Olds and Chevy were the best colonnades, in that order. I liked Pontiac (Firebird, YEAH!, and WE had one!), so the fact I didn’t like the LeMans as much as a disappointment.
You are too kind, Tom. This makes me wonder if my best work is always the result of procrastinating on something else that I am supposed to be doing. “Hmmm, pack up my office for an end-of-year move in the midst of getting ready for the holidays while my Mrs. is sick with the flu? Or write something about a POS Buick that nobody else would ever look at?”. 🤔
I agree, fantastically written piece Jim! One of the best I’ve read on CC (and that’s saying a lot)!
“It wasn’t until just now that I noticed that all of Buick’s color names for 1976 had a bicentennial theme”
I wonder how popular “Congressional Cream” would be these days…?!?
Not to mention “Musket Brown.”
I thought you might be too harsh about this cars condition. Then we got around to the door left ajar. Yeah, stick a fork in it. 🙁
While the Buicks are a close second, I would pick a Cutlass any year except maybe ’75.
This post (and yesterday’s post about Clunkers) brought back a lot of fun memories.
Back in the ’80’s (before automakers got serious about rustproofing) there was another reason why beaters existed — you got a winter beater to keep your “good car” from becoming a rust-bucket. There was absolutely no shame in driving a beater in the winter knowing that your good car was put away safe and sound in a nice dry, salt-free garage. I owned three beaters (or “hoopties” as they were known in our part of upstate NY) in the ’80’s. They looked like hell, but never once left me stranded.
Another benefit of owning a beater/clunker was insurance costs. You simply designated your beater as your primary vehicle for insurance purposes, and the discount you received on your good car would be substantial — especially if you could put your good car up on blocks for 3-4 months during the winter and drop all the insurance coverage except for collision.
This is still my approach. Keeping rust away from my old 4Runner, which is very thoroughly oil-undercoated anyways just in case. I just pressed it into daily driver duty this week as I noticed my parking brake was dragging on my winter-commuter A4.
Living in the land of salt-laden winter roads all my life, what many consider to be an end-stage clunker still look pretty good to me.
This is what I would call an end-stage clunker.
I now need a tetanus shot.
The Colonnades are one of the few cars where the four door sedans look as good or better than the coupes, especially the Pontiac LeMans and Chevy Malibu models. Lots of former full-size GM customers bought these, as they approximated their old Impalas, Catalinas, LeSabres and Olds 88’s better than the gargantuan A bodies that existed from 1971-76. Perfectly fine cars, not particularly memorable for anything good or bad, except the somewhat polarizing styling.
1977 was a peculiar year for Colonnades, as they were now bigger than the newly downsized “full-size” A bodies. Must have been tricky for a GM salesman to move up a prospective customer to a more expensive A body over the bigger B sitting next to it in the showroom.
Most likely the Colonnades that were sold in 1977 were overwhelmingly the coupe models, particularly over at Oldsmobile and Buick.
The coupe versions were still seen as stylish and handsome, even after the debut of the downsized 1977 full-size cars. And people who bought Colonnade coupes obviously didn’t place a premium on space efficiency.
All a salesman had to do was have the buyers sit in the B body. The Colonnades were not as roomy, especially in the rear, with the extra C pillar window corner cutting ease of entry. I rode in back of a ’77 Olds Cutlass Supreme 4 door and it was not “bigger”.
The Colonnade A bodies sold were over 75% coupes, being the disco/album rock era of Boomers.
Holy station wagon, Batman! 😉
(Great post, JPC!)
Good grief. Here in Austria you will be stopped by the police at first sight and walk home. Then there will be a LARGE fine.
Wow… not only does rust never sleep, it’s on a meth-fueled bender…
I don’t see what the problem with the stacked headlights is,they add some long gone class to the car and i feel it suits the style the way the fender lines rise up from the door to the fron and the lights fit right in as a cap off. although i agree that the Monte Carlo handled them better. i sure hope this loyal steed is still riding around. i have not seen one of these since the 1980’s. thanks for the memories JP!
Nice article, thank you. Sad to see this car let go like this. I think any 44 year old survivor deserves better than to be driven into the ground. I’ve rescued cars like this, a beater, sold cheap, that had once been someone’s pride and joy. Their age, solid condition, their style or luxury made them interesting and worth preservation.
This Regal is too far gone, maybe 5 years ago it could have been saved. Maybe someone consciously made this decision. They had pride of ownership but economic reality meant , like an old cart horse, it was worked to the last breath, no gentle retirement and no rescue.
The flexible rubber panel between the bumper and quarter panels is gone, and it has most likely been gone for more than five years.
At the big Carlisle shows, it’s not uncommon to see a 1970s GM car in otherwise decent shape that is missing these panels. When those panels start to fade and crack, it detracts from the entire car’s appearance.
For whatever reason, these parts deteriorated faster on GM cars than on Fords and Chryslers from this era.
I see this quite often too with cars from the 70’s… the missing or deteriorated bumper filler panels.
Why isn’t some sort of replacement filler available for those that want to restore these cars?
You’d think there’d be some sort of aftermarket thing going on there.
Speaking as someone trying to meticulously maintain a less popular car that is just a mere 25 years old: HA!
It’s not a Mustang or an even moderately popular Muscle car era car, so there isn’t enough demand for the various reproduction fillers to be economically viable.
I guess you’d have to fabricate it yourself somehow then… maybe something similar comes in a roll, but then you’d have to paint it…
…yeah, there’s probably no good way to do this.
May your Cougar live on, Matt… Having had a few MN12s (T-Birds in my case), there is a copious amount of bumper cover plastic going on there.
Of course all cars are like that nowadays. Hopefully it is a much better material than those fillers were back in the day.
It’s not a problem with the bumper cover plastic in my case at least, nothing on MN12s deteriorate the way 70s GM filler panels did, but finding many cosmetic parts that break or get damaged there is no other option besides salvage, nobody even makes replacement composite headlights for my year anymore.
3D printing would be ideal for this kind of stuff if you have access.
New aftermarket filler panels are available for full-size GMs of this era, at least for Olds 98, Electra and Cad. Not sure about intermediates though.
Huge aftermarket offerings for bumper fillers for Cadillac, have to think they are out there for other GM cars
End stage clunker. I like it! Here in mostly rust-free, but also safety-inspection-free, California, we used to have more of them but “Cash for Clunkers”, high fuel prices and of course biennial emissions inspections have taken many off the road. But since the “smog” checks are for pre-1976 only, we do have a small but lasting population of 1970’s cars and trucks plying the roads. On the truck side, Ford and even Dodge vie with GM for popularity, but on with domestic cars it’s mostly GM.
By the way, I was a high school senior when the Colonnades came out and I liked them. The shape was innovative and I think they were a worthy successor to the equally new-looking ‘68-72 style A Bodies.
“Cash for Clunkers” didn’t take anything older than 1984 as a trade.
On a side note, given that Cash for Clunkers was a decade ago, many cheaper 2009 cars purchased in that program are now in junkyards themselves. Think Aveos, Spectras, Versas, etc.
If I’m not mistaken even 1976 and newer cars are “grandfathered in” under whatever emissions requirements were in effect when they were new, so in other words a 1979 car only had to meet the emissions limits from 1979 when it goes for its smog test. Having previously owned a car that would fail on the first attempt almost every I took it to be smogged, I’m somewhat well versed in California smog testing requirements. 🙂
I occasionally see a Skylark from the 1976-79 generation in my neighborhood, in other words just new enough to require smog testing. It pretty much meets the description someone mentioned in a prior post: It’s in pretty good condition for its age except it’s missing that plastic bumper fill panel. It still has the classic blue California plates, and the fact the it still maintains its registration must mean the owner maintains it well enough that it still passes the smog test.
I think the thing that takes older cars off the road isn’t the smog testing per se, but the related vehicle retirement program I mentioned in the “clunker” thread yesterday. If your car fails the smog test and you decide it’s not worth fixing, you can effectively sell it to the state for $1000 and “retire” it, not unlike Cash for Clunkers. I took advantage of that program when I finally got tired of fixing some emissions related problem with my old Saturn just because A) It seemed like less hassle than trying to sell it, and B) $1000 was likely more than I could have sold it for.
My grandmother owned, briefly, a colonnade Buick of this era, albeit hers was the two door version. This would have been circa 1982 and the poor Regal was close to, if not already in, beater status. The few years the Buick had been on the road had not been kind; there were already some rusty spots on the body and the interior was no prize either. My grandmother was nearly 80 by this time and had pretty much given up driving except for going to church and the grocery, both destinations about five blocks from her home. The purpose of her having a car was to make it easier for my siblings and me to take her to doctor’s appointments etc., she could enter and exit a full size car much better than folding herself into my Rabbit or my brother’s Chevette. I drove the Regal enough to be thoroughly unimpressed; the combination of the gutless V6 and a 2.41 final drive meant that one had to drive the car like you stole it to achieve any progress at all. The final straw was the day my sister took my grandmother somewhere and the Buick refused to start, the final outcome was that my father took the Regal and somehow traded for an early seventies Ford sedan. This car was older than the Buick but at least it was reliable, and thirsty, with the 400 CID V8 the Ford averaged around 10-11 MPG in daily driving.
Twenty years from now there will still be early 2000’s Buick LeSabres and Park Avenues in this exact condition puttering along and leaking fluids, cigarette butts protruding from their ashtrays in Walmart parking lots all across the US.
Yep. The 3800 is near impossible to kill, especially later versions once the bugs were worked out.
A metal manifold is a bug?
I meant to say “as long as you avoided years with the common intake manifold problem”. I couldn’t remember if those were the earlier or later ones.
Great post, JPC… I enjoyed this one very much with my morning coffee before heading off to work. You managed to bring emotion to this, making the reader feel sad for the poor old workhorse, by giving the car a great story. Your final paragraph plays like a well done eulogy, begging for a moment of silence.
I am quite sure that this one will be in the “CC’s Best of 2019” series a year from now.
A guy I worked for had a ’74 Regal, dark blue, handed down from his mother. This being Uruguay, and his mother having had before the Buick a ’60-something Imperial, they were a wealthy family. They got the Regal with about 2 years from the Swiss embassy (the car kept the international symbol for Switzerland in its bumper). I was amazed at the car’s condition (for me, it was an ultra-aspirational car) when I worked for him in ’83. I rode in it just once, it was mid December and temperatures were around 32°C. I asked about AC and he said, it’s broken. Power windows weren’t working either. I clearly remember how accelerator positioning and engine noise were related, but those two were totally unrelated to speed or acceleration. Having just gotten my driving license, I offered to buy the car. He said, OK, 3k dollars. I didn’t have as much money and besides a ’74 Chevette cost as much and, while simpler, would go two or three times as far on a liter of gas. It would be about 9 more years before I was able to afford my own car.
Whatever, I remember the car when new, and it was gorgeous.
BTW, a new Opel Rekord with very weak AC took the place of that Buick around that time.
Fittingly I found a 76 Regal sedan similar to this in a normally late model wrecking yard 2 years ago, might have even been the special Congressional Cream from my recollection. I can only assume it too was an end of life beater leading up to its final fate there. Bittersweet, on one hand I admire a serving dinosaur that managed the daily grind into the modern era, but it’s sad to see them die alone as a stranger among late models, ultimately sandwiched in a crush stack between a Cavalier and a Camry.
But… I do not have much love for this design, I think it’s the ugliest front end of the 1970s, even worse than the late AMC Matador sedans. I don’t like stacked rectangular headlights on pretty much everything I admit, but with these bugged out at the edges of the flanks they look particularly grotesque. It also strikes me as a cost saving measure to not bother updating the sedan body as extensively as the coupe, Buick was the only one of the four divisions not to do that.
I always wondered why these monstrosities were called colonnades. I’m an 80’s baby so by the time I was old enough to even know what GM meant the majority of them were in the automotive graveyard (GM quality must have been atrocious in the 70’s). Anyone care to enlighten me?
col·on·nade
noun
a row of columns supporting a roof, an entablature, or arcade.
The roof pillars. The Collonades were the first A-body cars to fully drop the pillarless hardtop bodystyles across the board, simultaneously emphasizing the B pillars as a major styling element as well – even today most pillared cars try to emulate the hardtop look with blackout pillars and continuous trim around the greenhouse.
What Matt said. Plus that was what GM called them in promotional literature in the runup to the fall of 1972 introduction.
In addition to the car’s roof pillar design, I think the name “Colonnade” may have had special resonance with the folks at GM because the GM Building in New York was once called the Colonnade Building… and GM’s Detroit headquarters was similar designed with prominent architectural colonnades.
I’ve never read a definitive link between these buildings and the 1970s Colonnade car name, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone thought it was a clever historical connection.
So yesterday’s piece about the “Clunker” Allstate ad made me recall Mel, a neighbor about a mile down the (gravel) road from when I was a kid in the ’80s. Every year or, sometimes, two, Mel’d be driving a different 10ish-year-old car.
This is exactly what Mel’s cars looked like-busted, sagging, spewing, giant.
As an aside, when I was running leasing operations for a development company that leased to a lot of Section 8 tenants, I could usually tell who was just riding down the street versus who was coming for the scheduled showing based on how far down the beater ladder their car was. 99 times out of 100, a car in this state was the potential tenant.
Any car that can give its last as its owners pray it’ll start one more time deserves respect.
“The early 1980’s became an era of expensive gasoline. In that environment these cars morphed from symbols of suburban conformity and social acceptability to “good beater”.”
Replace “early 1980s” with “late ’00s” and you’re describing Chevy Trailblazers and their ilk like the Bravada featured yesterday. Once desirable among soccer moms, they were being replaced with CUVs like the Traverse and Equinox.
And in 2019, the Trailblazer is definitely a “cheap beater” at best.
Edit: forgot that Chevy is bringing back the Trailblazer name. I’m obviously referring to the 2002 version.
In terms of their powertrain and chassis configuration, sure, but Trailblazers don’t really have that rolling anachronism styling in today’s world the Collonades had by the 90s, they just look like large crossovers. Scale that final Bravada down to a 3/4 unibody add some LED running lights and throw in a transverse powertrain and it could pass as new.
I have really vague memories of Collonades during my earliest childhood, where they were solidly in the cheap beater category and ravaged by the many Chicago area winters, but I do remember they stood out like sore thumbs with their huge lumpy girth, earth tones, vinyl tops and big chrome battering rams among the monotone jellybean cars of the early 90s and beyond. Anything made in the last 20 years looks pretty normal next to each other, but the shift out of the brougham era to more European/Japanese sensibilities was almost as radical as the switch from full fendered runningboard cars to envelope bodies.
Yes, I can’t say that SUVs from the late 1990s and early 2000s look that outdated or odd today, especially given the number of late model, full-size SUVs that are on the road.
If current market trends continue, what will stand out in 5-10 years will be conventional sedans from the early 2000s.
I agree that the Trailblazer doesn’t stand out in terms of styling today like this Colonnade did in the early ’90s. The only ~20-year-old car I can think of in North America that would stand out that outdated would be the Lada in Canada, which was sold until 1998 but was very clearly a ’70s car. Of course, very few survive.
Looks like someone was living out of it. I wonder whats with the door that doesn’t close?
BTW, JP, the Grand Prix is the best looking Colonnade, and with that there can be no argument 😉
That said, I have a Collannade story coming up with a much happier ending
A good story of the life of a “beater.” I’m amazed that this Buick stayed on the road as long as it did in the Midwest. Around here the Colonnades largely disappeared from the road by the mid-1990s. Now they are either waiting to be recycled, or parked in some garage and only brought out for car shows.
I can’t say that I liked the stacked, rectangular headlights used by Buick and Chevrolet in 1976-77. They seemed at odds with the overall “florid” look of the rest of the car. Oldsmobile handled the transition much better, although at this point I’ve come to prefer the all of the 1973-75 Colonnades to the final two years.
It’s interesting that the sedans and wagons seemed like afterthoughts by 1977. There weren’t many Colonnade sedans around from those last two years where I lived, and they certainly weren’t equipped with the nice wheels like the Buick in the brochure. The coupes were still popular, and likely to be bought well-equipped, but by 1977 the sedans and wagons were being bought by older buyers who were less likely to splurge on options.
For two of the divisions – Oldsmobile and Pontiac – the sedan versions were heavily promoted during the first year, via the Cutlass Salon and Grand Am, respectively. By 1976, that effort was forgotten, as the personal luxury coupes received the attention – and the sales.
Yes, I was amazed at how wildly the coupe outsold the sedan in the top-end Regal model (17K to 124K). Sedan buyers stayed in the lower models, apparently. This was also right in the middle of the Great Granada Explosion, a car that made an awful lot of conquest sales to GM owners in the first couple of years.
Even though we do snark about the stacked rectangular headlamps now, I remember feeling, as a kid in the 70’s, that they did make everything with round lights instantly feel out of date. We had a ’73 Luxury LeMans and it seemed embarassingly old fashioned with it’s “granny lights” compared to the fresh new rectangular trend of ’76. A lot of that had to do with cars having round lights since their invention, so the new shape was the first radical change in many decades.
Now I think that LeMans was one of the best looking of the Colonnade bunch, but I was mortified at the time.
Yeah, I agree the LeMans, especially ’75 with the drop tail lights, was awesome looking, followed by the Regal and then Cutlass.
My cousin had one, same color, except for a matching red top, same year, same model, and bought off some old biddy for something like $800. It was in 1995-7, while he was in grad school at the Md Institute of Art in Baltimore, and it was a Good Beater at the time. Although I had pop-riveted new lower rear quarters on it for him to pass MD Inspection, the Rustoleum we painted it with blended in with that paint color amazingly well, and being an artist he kept it clean and polished with pride, inside and out. With only 80k or so miles it served him well for a couple of years, when he moved on to a ’77 Electra Coupe, whereupon it continued it’s downhill spiral to Cheap Beater-dom with it’s next owner, no doubt. Regardless of it’s lowly status by then, I liked that car a lot.
My relationship with Colonnades is complicated.
On one hand I liked – no loved the Malibu. A family member had one, a ’74, and I liked its grille, its taillights, and how it drove. It was a 2 door as I recall, so did not have the funky 4 door roof. I almost bought one myself truth be told. However we had a 1977 Malibu at work, and it was a slug. All 250 cubes of it.
On another hand a couple of friends had ’73 and ’74 Cutlasses. They were as arrogant as all get out about their cars, and the greatness of GM. These machines ran great, especially on the highway at 70+ MPH. They really hugged the road. I liked the styling of the 73 over the 74 and subsequent years, but this guy’s constant braggadocio really made my skin crawl. It didn’t help that he insulted everyone else’s car. I watched gleefully as his baby rusted out before his eyes.
I have commented previously about the Le Mans, in particular the 1973, and its’ knife job taillights. I don’t believe they were GM’s finest hour. However I did drive a 1975 for work (great summer job – free beer too!) and liked its power and handling.
So I guess you could say that over time I came to mellow about our Colonnade friends. I readily photograph them when I see them at show n shines these days.
Excellent find!
I have never been able to summon the love for the Chevrolet versions of these cars – it seemed as though the styling ideas filtered through the other 3 Divisions first and Chevy got what was leftover, which was a car with all of the personality squeezed out of it.
I remain a huge fan of the 74 LeMans sedan, but I have never been able to stand the 73 (which looked unfinished) or the 76-77 which seemed to get the same personality-leaching treatment that Chevy got. I realize that I am in a distinct minority on this.
On the styling, I always thought these ’76-77 Buick 4-doors were the worst. I really liked the 73-75 Bucks though, in particular the 2-doors. I didn’t really care for the stacked lights on the Buicks, or the Chevy Malibus, but the Monte Carlo’s looked okay to me. While the Chevy’s had the plainest front and rear ends, I always thought they were the cleanest and nicest styled from the side view. It’s too bad GM didn’t put a decent front end on the Chevy, in my eyes it could have been a looker.
The Colonnade is a good example of that shows much the intermediate market evolved in the 1970’s in a short time. GM was at least willing to invest in these cars to try and keep them relevant, unlike Ford that let its intermediates go from popular and stylish to horribly out of style and out of date in a short time.
“unlike Ford that let its intermediates go from popular and stylish to horribly out of style and out of date in a short time.”
Ford? 😉
Yes, I thought of the Mopars too, but they were never really stylish or popular during that time. 😉
Touche, Vince. But I would argue that they actually we’re stylish from October of 1970 through about May of 1971. But yeah. 🤔
I was actually being a little facetious, because I do think that the 71-72 Plymouth Satellites 2-doors were attractive cars. Regardless of my opinion, none of the Mopars were exactly at the forefront of the sales chart or styling trends.
Even when new these were a styling nightmare , not to mention the general lack of quality so typical of GM at the time. Like them or hate them ,Pontiac seemed to be the best equipped exterior design team at GM during these years….faint praise though it is. The passing of time has not been kind.
“not to mention the general lack of quality so typical of GM at the time.”
Ummmm . . . I’m no GM homer, but did you spend any time around Chrysler products in the second half of the 70s? These seemed (annoyingly) well built to me.
The 76 and 77 Gran Furys and 77 Newport we owned, 1 of which we drove for over 10 years, were quite well screwed together, ran well, and lasted a long time with only minimal routine maintenance. IMO superior in every way to my cousin’s 77 Regal sedan. Mopar’s solution to 5 mph bumpers was far more attractive and durable than GM’s horrible self-rotting design as well. The instruments were functional (it actually had some) the seats were supportive and excellent for long trips, and the 360 non -LB was decent on gas as well. I’d take another GF in a heartbeat.
Interesting to hear about weak door hinges on this era of GM cars. I was handed down a Corgi version of this car as a child and distinctly remember the doors sagging on that too.
What a great read JPC! I really like your ode to the beater. I have a soft spot for old unloved beaters. There was a time when my family had some financial hardship and cars like this kept us on the road reliably and cheaply. Mind you we always looked after our cars, even the old worn out ones, so they never made it to the lowest rung on the beater ladder.
For a while in my younger adult years, I drove around in old cheap American cars from the 70’s and 80’s. Unlike my friends who bought new cars, which I could have afforded, I drove cheap cars to save up and buy a house. I also really liked the old relics. They were cheap, easy to fix and had lots of character. Mind you I always looked after these old cars, kept the beat up paint washed and waxed, the engine finely tuned and the interior spotless. Just because it’s old and cheap doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look after it.
That Buick doesn’t look too bad in my eyes, at least compared to the 70’s beaters we used to have on the roads around here. The body actually looks pretty solid, I don’t see any holes? My guess is this car hasn’t been exposed to many winters yet. It will deteriorate very quickly with this type of use. These Colonnades were horrendous rusters. While not up to 1970’s Ford’s levels, they were still awful. An old bodyman friend of the family told me how he hates the Colonnade GM’s, specifically because he had to do so much rust repairs on these back in the day.
…”rolls to its destination so the owner can get to a minimum wage job.” Coincidentally, today I saw a young cop stop a 20 year-old Taurus station wagon, ostensibly for no front license plate. The car was stuffed with junk and the driver almost certainly lives in it. A human tragedy, barely subsisting, but the most important matter was the missing front license plate.
A memorable piece of writing by our own Cavanaugh which may prompt some of us to think of others less fortunate.
A good account of this type of car. I have to admit I was never a fan of the Colonnade types. I’m pretty certain they (like AMC’s Matador) were designed without the 5 MPH bumpers in mind and those were added at the last minute so that – with the exception of Pontiac’s Grand Am and Chev’s Laguna – they look clunky, what with all of those flowing curves and creases. I also remember them growing up in Israel in the 60s-70s as cars which looked flashy for 2-3 years but whose paint and upholstery deteriorated very quickly thereafter, and yes, we had our own equivalents of the subject matter of the article cluttering the streets. Now, of course, they have a resurgence of sorts but in no way sought after as the previous GM intermediates.
I have a soft spot for all the 73 & 74 Colonnades…worked at Budget Rent a Car here in Vancouver when they were new. Malibu’s, Cutlass and Monte Carlos with the odd LeMans or Regal showing up once in a while. The Oldsmobile’s were very popular with the customers as well as us lowly car jockeys….burned rubber well with the genuine Olds 350s!
Clearly one of the best pieces of writing found on CC about a type of automobile many of us treasure. Thank you JP. Buick Colonnades never seemed to look right to me. Their front and rear treatments weren’ t as smoothly tied to the body as some of the others. My fav will always be the 73 Grand Am as it was my Dad’s first new car in 15 years. It made a huge impression on me at 10 years old and I still love the look.
I once witnessed the death of a very similar Buick under very similar circumstances.
The car was a lemon yellow over tan vinyl stripper Regal (tragically ugly color scheme).
It met its demise in a snowy Chicago parking lot on a very cold day in 1982. My friend, its owner, attempted to start it. When it kicked over finally, it threw a rod. The whole car jerked violently around the engine’s axis, and that was it. Deader than doornail.
There’s someone in my town who drives a beaten late 80s extended wheelbase Dodge Caravan. I’ve never seen it actually driving per se, but it’s always in the driveway of a house on one of the main roads, and about 20 percent of the time it’s not there. I dread the day it disappears.
There’s also a Pontiac 6000 of a similar vintage that I see driving around from time to time with quite a bit of rust. Now that I think about it it’s been a few months since I’ve seen it.
A local dollar store used to have an A-body Century wagon from the mid 1980s parked outside rather often, which I actually did see driving quite often. Unfortunately, it disappeared years ago and from what I can tell was replaced with a late-model Hyundai Santa Fe.
I can think of several other local beaters, but none are as noteworthy.
I am hesitant to say this is my favourite ever article on CC because there have been so many good ones where I have learned so much and been entertained..
But this has really hit a spot with me, I can’t imagine any where else where I could find a story about a car like this told with such insight and respect.
When I was younger I drove worn out Australian Valiants, they always seemed to get you where you had to be and then home again, then graduated to not so worn out Falcons.
I have been able to rise above that now and drive a 2018 car now, but I will never forget how it used to be.
Thank you so much for this Mr Cavanaugh, it really hit home for me.